A big-bucks plan to inspire employees of an East Bay community college district with management practices gleaned from "The Wizard of Oz" has hit a rainbow roadblock.

The problem: The consultants hired by the district were contributors to the Proposition 8 crusade to ban same-sex marriage in California.

The Peralta Community College District's journey down the yellow brick road began in January when its board voted to support newly installed Chancellor José Ortiz's plan to transform the culture at its Oakland headquarters and four campuses.

The book uses the characters from "The Wizard of Oz" to illustrate how a company's success depends on managers being held accountable and not blaming others when things go wrong.

Earlier this month, 71 college district managers - who earn anywhere from $67,000 to $215,000 a year - were ordered to sit through two days of jargon-filled training, the first in a scheduled series of such sessions.

College staffers who decided to take a look behind the curtain came across campaign finance records showing that at least five Partners in Leadership employees had contributed to Prop. 8, the 2008 ballot measure to ban gay and lesbian marriages. The donors included the company's co-presidents - Smith gave $2,500, while Connors contributed $500.

Faster than you can say, "There's no place like home," Ortiz fired off a statement late Monday saying that "in light of this information, I have decided to reconsider Peralta's relationship with (Partners in Leadership) until I have had time to further investigate the matter."

Peralta spokesman Jeff Heymansays Ortiz knew about the Prop. 8 contributions, but not until after the college district awarded the contract. Then came our calls asking about the company.

"We have policies in support of the LGBT community, and we have to make sure the contract doesn't run counter to those policies," Heyman said.

A spokeswoman for Partners in Leadership said company officials weren't available for comment.

Not so affirmative: When it comes to affirmative action, Asian Americans appear to be of two minds: the philosophical and the practical.

As recently as 2012, a nationwide poll of 4,755 Asian Americans by political science Professors Karthick Ramakrishnanat UC Riverside and TaekuLee at UC Berkeley found that 75 percent of respondents said they favored programs "to help blacks, women and other minorities get better jobs and educations."

In California, support was at 80 percent.

So why the outcry from their own ranks when the state Legislature moved to reinstate affirmative action for admission to the University of California and other public universities?

"I think the opposition to affirmative action was organized earlier and more effectively than anyone expected," Ramakrishnan said.

Three state senators, including Democrat Leland Yee of San Francisco, cited an outcry from Asian American constituents in calling on the Assembly to shelve a constitutional amendment that would have allowed public universities to give admission preference to underrepresented minorities. Those minorities don't include Asian Americans, who fill the ranks at prestige UC campuses in disproportionate numbers.

On Monday, legislative leaders consigned the proposed amendment to a long series of statewide hearings.

So was the Asian American outcry as widespread as lawmakers believed, or was it the work of a very active and very vocal minority?

Ramakrishnan, who has spent 14 years studying Asian American voting patterns in California, thinks it was the active minority.

"It was like the early stages of the Tea Party," Ramakrishnan said. "They were very well-organized, they knew where the pressure points were, and they went after them.

"In this case, it was the fear that the government might take something away from you," Ramakrishnan said.

Heavenly: The University of California is about to sign on to help build the world's largest - and probably the most expensive - stargazer.

The project, which has been more than a decade in the making, is being spearheaded by UC, Caltech and a group of Canadian universities. China, India and Japan have also signed on as partners.

Under the terms to be presented Wednesday to the Board of Regents, UC would pay as much as $175 million in construction costs and nearly $4.8 million in annual maintenance costs.

UC says the bulk of its costs would be paid from philanthropic sources. It's trying to raise $50 million from donors for the project.

Aside from allowing researchers to collaborate internationally, said UC spokesman Steve Montiel, "this telescope promises to revolutionize our understanding of the universe, and will benefit the eight UC campuses that have vibrant astronomy and astrophysics programs."